September 18th 2023.
Rio Ferdinand has voiced his concern over Jadon Sancho's future at Manchester United following Erik ten Hag's public criticism of the winger. The former England defender believes the United boss has made a huge mistake in publicly slamming Sancho, and wonders if Ten Hag was aware of the risk he was taking.
Following the 3-1 defeat to Arsenal, Sancho was left out of the squad for the trip to the Emirates Stadium and, in response to Ten Hag's criticism of his training levels, the 23-year-old then deleted his own response.
Ferdinand discussed the situation on Vibe with Five, saying: "To be thrown out of the squad, what's gone on? Is it a personal thing between the manager and player? Or is he genuinely not training the way he wants him to train?"
The former United defender went on to say that Ten Hag may not have been aware of the risk he was taking in publicly embarrassing Sancho. He said: "He's exhausted every avenue to try to get the best out of Jadon Sancho. I think Jadon would say and agree he hasn’t lived up to the hype yet and the fee. The manager has gone, 'this is my last chance', I can’t get anything else out of him so I’ll make it public and see if that public embarrassment and his pride gets pressed enough where he goes, 'I'm not having this', and, 'I'm coming back with a performance'."
Ferdinand also compared the situation to when Ten Hag opted to bench Marcus Rashford for being late to a meeting, and said: "I just think there have been players asked questions publicly or subliminally - Wan-Bissaka, for instance, he's come back from almost the dead - I think the manager going public with Jadon was a big call and I think did the manager understand the risk with that?"
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